Don't Forget Me
by KatnissxSwift
Summary: {Sequel to Love Isn't A Lie} Katniss is back in District 12 after ten years without any contact to her family and friends. Can she and Peeta learn to love again or has the damage already been done?
1. (Prologue) Ten Years

Ten years had passed since the incident.

Ten years had passed since the wedding.

Ten years had passed since all the commotion.

Ten years had passed since the reporters ambushed me at every corner.

Ten years had passed since I'd had my child.

Ten years had passed since I last heard an "I love you."

So I packed my bag that morning, scooped up my child and crept out of the house. We boarded the train heading for District 12 together, watching the trees blur together like my wasted time had.

_Ten years was too long._

* * *

**A/N - The sequel is here! This is just a short prologue or taster or whatever you want to call it. (: Please review and tell me what you think. If no one really reads it or likes it, then I might not continue, so _please_ tell me what you think!**

**Best Wishes,  
~KatnissxSwift**


	2. Reunions

"Where's father?" An anxious voice wakes me, "Where are we?"

I bite my lip and rest my head against the window, choosing not to answer my daughter's question. Outside, there are trees filling every gap of the forest. I wonder if anyone has ever gotten lost amidst the dark green abyss with not even a crack of light slipping through the thick branches.

"Where are we, mother?" My daughter asks again. When I ignore her again, she repeats her question in a stern tone, "Where are we, Katniss Hawthorne?"

_Hawthorne._

"We're going back home, okay? And don't you _dare_ call me Katniss Hawthorne again. My name is Katniss Everdeen!" I snap at her, red faced.

It's a while before she asks another question.

"Why?"

"What now?" My voice is weaved with annoyance and frustration.

"Why are you two always fighting? Don't you two love each other?"

"No, we don't."

"But I thought two people only married when they love each other."

"Well," I say, biting back harsh and colourful words, "sometimes, people have to marry each other because they _have _to."

"Wh-"

"Enough with the questions, Sage," I say firmly and go to the dining room.

* * *

The train makes a short stop at District 11 and I go out for some air. My stomach has now knotted itself together and I feel terrible. The nerves that claw at me are almost enough to make me turn around and go back to District 2, go back to Gale. I clench my jaw. No, I won't go back to him. Not now.

"We better get on the train again before it leaves us here," a quiet voice says behind me. Sage pauses for a few seconds, looks down rt, "and I'm sorry for being so impolite before. For asking questions about problems I have no right to."

"No, it's my fault. I shouldn't have been so impatient," I stroke her hair.

* * *

I step off the train and breathe in the familiar smell of fresh rain and snow. In the town below, it's loud and busy. People hustle around quickly, weaving in between crates and boxes others are carrying down the road. You wouldn't believe how much a place can change in just ten years.

"Welcome home, darling." I whisper.

Surprisingly, the Victors' Village had more than just three inhabited homes. I could see the smoke rising up from chimneys of three other houses.

We slipped through the unlocked door without anyone realising. Or if they did, they didn't decide to make it known. It was still the same. The same old couches, the same carpet, the same bench where Peeta used to bake bread and cheese buns, the same bench I stabbed with a knife.

"Drop your stuff on top, Sage." I gesture to the coffee table between the two couches where Peeta promised he'd love me forever. An all too familiar feeling washes through me again. Guilt. '_If it were a language, it'd be my mother tongue._' The thought saddens me.

* * *

I try Peeta's house first. But after seventy-two knocks and what seems like an eternity, I decide to give up. It's still in the wee hours of morning and I wouldn't expect him to be up anyway.

It takes nine knocks for Haymitch to open the door. He rubs his eyes and grumbles, "Back again are we, Johanna?"

"Haymitch?"

His eyes widen at the sight of me.

"Great. So without liquor, I'm going completely crazy." He yawns and shuts the door, muttering something sounding like 'you've gone mental' under his breath.

"Haymitch! You're not going crazy, it's really me," I shout and knock on the door again.

This time, it flings open quickly and he envelopes me in a warm hug.

"Oh Katniss, do you know how much we've missed you? We thought you'd dropped off the face of Earth," if I didn't know Haymitch better, I would've said he was crying.

He catches sight of the little brunette girl with grey eyes behind me.

"And this must be…" he trails off and I nod slowly, both of us not wanting to mention the incident that happened ten years ago.

Sage notices this and says, "I think I'm gonna go and wander around town. I'll be back soon," before she walks away.

I wait until she's an earshot away before asking, "When does Peeta normally wake up? I just visited him before and I don't think he's up yet."

"Do you want to go and see the others?"

"Haymitc-"

"They really miss you too," he continues, "your mother, Annie, Johanna, even Delly."

* * *

Annie is one who opens the door and squeals in surprise. She sets her child down and hugs me tightly.

"What's all the commotion, Annie?" Johanna halts in her tracks and she sees my face. Her eyes narrow in anger and she slaps me.

Well, she almost does. She stops her hand when it is a mere inch away from my cheek and pulls me into a tight embrace too.

"You infuriate me so much, don't you know that?" She shouts, "You can't just disappear and leave us without any form of contact and we don't even see you on television," then her voice softens, "we thought you'd died, Katniss. You can't do this to us anymore!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I whisper, to not just her, but also everyone else, "I just had to escape. From all the cameras, from all the reporters."

"We understand," a shaky voice comes from below the steps.

"Mother?" I turn around and that's when the tears really start slipping.

We hug each other. And in those few minutes, everything is silent. Nothing was heard. Not even the laughter and voices from town or the crunching of leaves or Annie's son's irritated sounds could be heard.

My mother is delighted to finally meet her grandchild.

"What's your name?" she asks.

"I'm Sage," my daughter at my face, "Sage Everdeen."

Everyone grins.

* * *

"Hey, um, where's Peeta?" I ask as we settle around the table for a feast.

Everyone looks around nervously and no one answers.

"Haven't you been watching the news, Katniss?" Annie's voice is shaky.

"No."

"Oh." She fidgets with the tablecloth.

"Annie, what's going on?"

"Um…Peeta's…," her green orbs are shining with fear as her teeth chatter out the next word, "dead."

* * *

**A/N - Oh it's finallyyyy done. I hope you like it, hee! Sorry if there are any mistakes because I don't really pick up much when I proof-read as I don't like doing it and I don't have a beta, so...yah.**

**I might fall back into updating like every (one and a half) month(s) because school is starting up next week ugh. Okay, I'm bringing an old character back in the next few chapters. Anyway, have a great day/afternoon/evening/night wherever you are.**

**Hugs,  
~KatnissxSwift**


	3. Cold Coffee

**A/N - This chapter does contain _a lot _of stuff about an original character, so you can feel free to just read the first part if you don't like stories containing OCs. Anything below the first cut is not vital but it will more helpful to read it. (: I hope you enjoy!**

* * *

"_Um...Peeta's...," her green orbs are shining with fear as her teeth chatter out the next word, "dead."_

Suddenly the room is too bright, the food revolting and the tablecloth too stiff. My mouth is numb, my breath is scarce and my knuckles are ivory from gripping the table legs too tightly. It's too quiet. Everyone's eyes shoot around, avoiding me. Slowly, I push my chair backwards with the little strength I have, wipe my mouth with a napkin and bid goodbye.

"We're going home, Sage," I say, when she comes back. We pick up our bags and wait for the next train. '_District 2. That's my only place.'_

Someone grabs me from behind with rough hands. Sage screams, but not me. I can't make a sound.

"Look, girl, he's not dead," there's a familiar gruff voice.

"Haymitch?"

"When you left, he was angry. At first it was towards you, but then it was towards himself. He thought you'd left because of the tracker jacker venom," he paused, "so he's at the Capitol getting himself treated. He made us promise that if you ever come back before he is, we tell you that he's dead, because he doesn't want you to go find him when he's not well. We haven't seen him ever since."

"I left because I couldn't stay, it wasn't his child, Haymitch! I couldn't put that burden on him," I whisper.

"Katniss, you know he would've happily raised your child even if it wasn't his."

He's right. For the last ten years, I thought I'd been doing him a favour. But now I realised I wasn't, that I was being selfish. _I _was the one who couldn't bear sharing a house and living together with Peeta and have Sage wandering around as a constant reminder of my mistake.

"I need to see him, I have to!"

"I guessed it would come to this conclusion," Annie's resigned voice comes from behind Haymitch.

"The cat is out of the bag. You two are terrible at keeping secrets. And promises at that," Johanna waggles her fingers at Haymitch and Annie.

The train pulls in.

"Say hi to Rose for me, won't you?" Annie takes the bags as Sage and I climb aboard.

* * *

I slump down in my chair, sighing. Sage has wandered off, anyway. Every time I approach a doctor or nurse, they turn away from me and giggle. Then they wipe off their amused faces and look at me with one clouded with confusion.

_"Peeta Mellark? I don't think he's in this hospital," they say._

"Liars," I mutter to myself.

For a moment I just close my eyes and think up of something else. Maybe I should go and find Dr Aurelius. '_He'll help me. He will.'_

"Katniss?"

The voice drags me out of my thoughts. It doesn't quite click in my head exactly whose voice it is, but I've heard it before. I take my time to open my eyes, and when I do, I see them. The green eyes. The same ones Annie's got.

"Rosalyn?"

"Just call me Rose," she sits down beside me, just like she did ten years ago when I woke up beside her.

"I know we didn't really end on a good note last time," I bite my lip.

"No...but it's really not your fault. It was me, I was too impolite. I was just really...um," she digs her nails into her skin, "upset."

There's a short silence before she brings up the topic I dread the most.

"Sorry I couldn't make the wedding," she apologises.

"It wasn't much of wedding anyway, more of a fancy place of humiliation," I try and crack a smile, but the air is still tense and Rose gives me a face of sympathy, but hiding in her smile lines and tired eyes, there are streaks disappointment.

"I know."

Then I get the feeling that maybe the disappointment wasn't because of the wedding, it wasn't because of what Gale and I did. But something else.

* * *

"So, um, are you married?" I ask, when she asks hands me the steaming coffee in a Styrofoam cup.

The question takes her by surprise. Her breath hitches and she almost drops her own cup of long black coffee.

"No," her voice trembles like her bony fingers. She takes a sip from her cup to calm herself and repeats, quieter this time, "no."

And I think it was to reassure herself.

"I'm still waiting," she says after a long pause.

"Waiting?"

"I'm waiting for him to remember. To remember me."

A thousand needles had prickled my heart when they told me Peeta had died, but I can't imagine the pain to be in her position. When someone is dead, that's it, they're gone, there's no hope of them ever coming back. But when someone who doesn't remember you is constantly there in your life, it's like hope is attached to a string you can never reach, no matter how close it is. It's mocking you.

"It hurts, you know."

The coffee had gone cold.

"I see him in District 4 every time. He gives me sad smiles and apologises because he can't remember, because he doesn't know who I am. And sometimes I think he is frustrated because everyone looks at us with wary eyes and tight smiles. Everyone knows who we are and it upsets him that he doesn't," her head hangs low, "every single person in District 4, even his parents who used to hate me, pat my back and give me sympathetic looks, because we all know he doesn't remember and he never will."

"You don't know that," I say, "how long has this been going on for?"

"Eleven years," she laughs impassively, "since the revolution. He was captured along with Peeta, Annie and Johanna. Rescued at the same time too."

That quirks an eyebrow.

"But I-"

"Of course you didn't know him. You didn't even know me. But Annie did. So did Finnick. They both tried to help him remember. After we returned to District 4, Annie mapped out all the places we'd spent time together. Where he'd saved me by the pier, the woods behind the beach, the ruins of my family's manor. It didn't work. None of it did. So we don't try anymore. When I go back, I just talk to him and try to start over again. But it doesn't feel the same anymore, I feel like I'm talking to a stranger."

The tears haven't come.

And they won't come for a long time.

* * *

My fingers tap on the side the cup nervously.

"Do you happen to know where Peeta is?" I ask cautiously.

"No," she stands up to walk away.

"Rose, I know you do," I grab her arm and pull her back down into the seat.

"Then why would you ask?"

"Out of manners?"

She scoffs, "I do know where he is," I open my mouth but she cuts me off, "but I can't tell you. I'm not allowed to, I'll lose my job."

"Rose, please," I beg, "I have to see him."

She purses her lips and looks around, as if she's actually contemplating my plead. When the corridor seems almost deserted, she quickly sticks a syringe into my arm. I feel my head knock against the wall but my vision is black. It's all black. _She's knocked me out._

* * *

**A/N - ARRGHH, I want to write a separate story about Rose and the boy she loves sooooo bad! If I do, I'll probably post it on wattpad and not here because it doesn't feature many of the characters from thg. Yeahh...idek, would any of you read it?**

**So basically, my friend has been bugging me like every day to get this up. For once I actually proof-read it and edited it, but I have a tendency to accidentally skip over mistakes, especially in my own work, so I apologise for that.**

**I hope you enjoyed that, and a forewarning, chapters later on like chapter 6, 7, 8...and all the chapters from then on might have slower updates because I haven't planned out this story with like a lot of detail yet. :/ Anyway, yep, have a great day/afternoon/evening/night.**

**Hugs,  
~KatnissxSwift**

**P.S: ROSE IS NOT EVIL**

**P.P.S: TODAY IS THE 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF RED, SO YEAH, I'M REALLY HAPPY AND I LOVE THE ALBUM SO MUCH AND I LIKE WAITED TWO YEARS FOR IT AND UM, YEAH I WAS JUST REALLY HAPPY WHEN THE ALBUM GOT RELEASED BECAUSE IT'S PERFECT AND IF YOU HAVEN'T HEARD IT YOU _NEED_ TO, IT'S AMAZING (well maybe cause i love every single taylor swift song ever). AND ALSO IT'S THE 7 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF TAYLOR SWIFT (self-titled album) ON THURSDAY, THEN THE 3 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF SPEAK NOW ON FRIDAY. YEP, HAVE A GREAT DAY! **


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